“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”
My 9th grade so far has been filled with many new, fun, challenging, frustrating learning experiences.
There have been so many ups, but so many downs (so much growth 🙌). I can already say, this is the hardest school year I have had. I have seen new versions of myself through different situations, and how I handle them. At the start of the year, I wanted to have a very strong academic year (which I still do), but as projects passed, new priorities arose.
Everyday I learn, which I can wait to tell you more about.
Let’s get right into it and start strong with my “Thrill-Us” marker project! (Which was a ‘horror’ to make!)
Thrill Us!
Maker, unsurprisingly, was the title holder for “worst project”! This is a very negative way to start, but on a positive note, I feel reflects so much of my growth, learning, and areas for improvement. This project I am reflecting on is the Thrill Us film project, which my friends and I got to create. Immediately, I had to learn how to straight up create short film (which in itself is filled with so many aspects), but I also I had to this while working this many creative differences. I like to think of myself as a strong collaborator, which I still do see myself as, but I have never needed to work so closely which a group on such a creative project.
We ended up with a very unique concept that could have been such an amazing short film. The important detail we forgot as we created storyboards, characters, and plot summaries. Our plan involved unheated water…. In the winter. Sadly, we also were terrible at scheduling ourselves enough filming and editing time. So on the Tuesday night, we filmed our movie. On the Wednesday, we realized almost all of our footage was terribly shot, and unusable. This project was due the Thursday night.So that Wednesday, we realized we essentially failed. After creating such an intricate, unique, creative concept, our execution could not create a project anyone was proud of.
Now, after such a hard fail, we had to quickly bounce back. And we BOUNCED. We were given an extension to Saturday, and within that time we had to alter/revise our idea, film, and edit. Together, after learning how to work with eachother, we created a new story(which did not involve water!). Even in the few days we had, we made sure we started filming right away, giving us more time.
This project was an eye opening shockwave to the importance of time management, and balancing creativity with what’s realistic. I have now noticed myself reflecting to this project when I start new ones as a reminder of how much more challenging a project become when I don’t plan well enough. But, I do still create very challenging projects for myself, sometimes on a tight timeline. When looking at a recent humanities project “Rise of the Frankenstuffies”, I planned a very complicated and time consuming animation to make. I did end up completing it very close to the deadline, but still a little late because of the crazy-making-process.
Now that I can recognize this within my projects near the end, I need to become able to understand faster, and come up with solutions for when I do discover my project idea is too bold. I need to improve my learning plan, so I can meet the deadlines to my projects, while still having work that I am proud of.
I also would like to add how proud I am of the project, in the sense of how my team recovered, and created an insane short film (a piece of film media I will forever be proud of).
Louis Riel!
The next project I want to talk about was a RIEL hit! My Louis Riel project led me to creating a multi-paragraph response to the driving question: How has the portrayal of Louis Riel changed over time? When I first went into this project, I remembered thinking “this is going to be super easy!”. Turns outs, I struggled. Like, a lot.
We spent lots of time learning about Riel, which I felt did really well with. I became quite engaged in my work, and even enthusiastic. Then, when we actually had to start writing, I couldn’t do it. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but during that class on Monday I stared at my iPad as my peers around me seemed to know exactly what to do. Right after that class, I had a mini panic attack, which led me to finally asking for help. But within the time my humanities class started and when I was crying in the counsellors office, I could have asked for help. I also could have worked on not letting myself get to that point. Experiences like this have been happening my whole life, largely due to my perfectionism. I believe the reason I could not start writing my paragraph in class was because I wanted to get it right on the first try, but I knew I couldn’t, because I didn’t understand fully what to do. And because I wanted to be able to get it right my very first copy, a part of me believed I shouldn’t “need” to ask for help.
Before this project, I thought I had a very improved control over my reactions to situations likes this. In my learning plan, “improving coping strategies”, was a very big goal for me. It is something that effects me a lot. This project made me realize how much I still have to develop, while also leading me to very helpful strategies! Because I became hyper aware of my emotions in this time, I actually turned to social media looking for ways other people keep themselves calm. The two strategies I now use as much as I can are 1. Box breathing2. Asking myself “will this matter in 5 years?” . Now these strategies might seem strange, but have really helped me in following situations, such as moments in the “Rise of the Frankstuffie” project, and Di.
Even though I wish every project could go smoothly, I know most won’t. But, by the end of this year, I want to have done at least 1 project where I am not so strongly upset, panicked, and overwhelmed. I want to have a strong method for me to use during project so that I can let myself have help, and not be so freaked out that my learning experience is ruined. I have already come up with some strategies, but I now will also be asking for suggestions and HELP from my teachers and peers to be able to complete this goal.
Thank you for reading to my mPOL. This reflective experience has actually been very helpful, in reminding myself what is important, what my goals are, the crazy year I’ve had, and how much I have learned.
How do we as writers make our message clear and engaging to an audience?
Hey blog, I haven’t been here for a while, but I finally have a new project to post about: Rise of the Frankenstuffies!
This was a big project, which included me making my own stuffie, a written story about it, and then creating a movie about it. This may be one of the harder project I have done, because of all of the components.
Let’s start by going over what the actual project was. We started by understanding the driving question, How do we as writers make our message clear and engaging to an audience? We had to create a story that clearly articulates the message/theme, while still being engaging and entertaining. (Purposeful communication, engaging creativity and meaning making, and effective production skills)
The easiest part of this whole process was making the actual stuffie, and reading the book “Leviathan”. The stuffie I created was a teddy bear with some frog legs, and a platypus’s tail and nose. So while we were in the starting process for our stuffie, we read the book “Leviathan”, doing reflections on it every week. “Leviathan”, was the perfect story for us to read, because it has a lot to do about weird creature-mutants, while following the “Hero’s journey” premise. Our reflections of the book helped me understand why the book was successful. Brainstorming for our characters followed, which slowly transitioned into creating characters files and storyboards.
Then we started writing the actual story. I had a hard time with this because creative writing is really hard for me. It took me a long time to actually start writing, due to me not being able to come up with anything. I wish I would have just started writing, instead of trying to write perfectly the first try. I also wanted to be able to compunicate the idea of my story without writing too much. My first draft was very short, and basically just a chunk of writing describing what was going to happen. It wasn’t written like an engaging “hero’s journey”, but instead a brainstorm for what a hero’s journey would look like.
My second draft was a a lot stronger, a story I’m actually really proud of.I feel like this story is really entertaining, and something I would actually read in real life.
Now that my written form of this project was complete, I needed to make my digital media representation. Through this movie I needed to show my production skills, which I think I did very well. The platforms I used to create it were Keynote and iMovie. When looking at my storyboard, you can see there are many scenes(138 to be exact) and I animated around that many slides to complete my movie. Then I put it into iMovie to add sound. I think my movie is very detailed, and has strong animation. I feel like my movie doesn’t really tell the audience what I wanted it to. The message I wanted to convey was something along the lines of “Don’t let your fears/pains stop you from getting what you want”.
From a producing point-of-view, I really struggled with was finishing it by deadlines. The way I chose to make it took me a long time, and because it was a new way for me to create, I had to learn along the way.
Overall, this project taught me a lot of things. I got to work on my creative writing skills, communication skills through different media, media creating skills, and also a personal growth: time management. Because of how big but fast-moving this project was, when I noticed myself leaving things to the last minute, or handing things in late, it got harder every time to get back on track. I have a better understanding of the importance of meeting deadlines.
I hope you have liked my story, in both media forms! To give me direct feedback, click the link below! It will take you to a platform that you can give me direct feedback, make a comment, or ask a question!
Driving question: How has the portrayal of Louis Riel changed over time?
When I got back to school after winter break, I learned about my last project for Humanities in semester 1. For my three last weeks, I was going to learn about Louis Riel, and how his portrayal changed over time. I was ALSO going to be improving my writing abilities.
Now, to be able to answer the driving question I was given for this project, “How has the portrayal of Louis Riel changed over time?”, I need to learn the basics first. We spent lots of time learning about who Louis Riel was, where he was from, what he did, and who it effects. At the same time, we were also spending time learning about how we can use stronger words. These stronger words would help us improve writing pieces, and understand how to express a powerful message. We used frayar models, and other tools to help us with this.
Now that I had a good understanding of him generally, I started to her more about different portrayals of him. A really good example we looked at were two statues. One statue, made by Marcien Lemay and Étienne Gaboury, presents a very weak, powerless man. The figure has a distorted body, that is leaning over and has his hands behind his back. Then we looked at a different statue Miguel Joyal, that showed a very strong, powerful, heroic man. The figure is standing tall, is well dressed, and holding a scroll. The first statue was made in 1973, while the second one was made in 1996. From this comparison, you can see how negatively Louis Riel was viewed. Over time though, more positive portrayals of Riel came to life, as more people started to learn about him from more then just one perspective.
With all the information I had gathered, I could create my multi-paragraph response to the driving question! I had a very hard time with this. I found I had a really hard time starting my project, but with the help of an amazing teacher, I found myself creating something I am quite proud of. I got feedback from my peers, and from my teachers, leaving me with writing that I want to share. I feel I met the criteria, and showed my analyzing skills through my writing. I used two examples that we learned about as evidence, and explained how the portrayed Louis Riel, and how that contributes to the driving question.
Through this project I learned a lot. I learned about some words, and how I can use them to enhance my writing. I learned about Louis Riel, what he did for the Métis people, and how is portrayal changed over time. These aspects of what I learned are very easy to see, but when I reflect deeper, I can see a few more things. One thing I got to really understand through this project is when you look at history, you might not be getting an accurate explanation to what happened after you read on article, or look at one piece of evidence. Especially when the evidence you are looking at was from the time period. As these events are happening, everyone will have options, and biases, which can lead the to create information that doesn’t share the full story. Morals also tend to be differnt then morals that are more common now. I really understand how much a bias can effect the way a person is seen.
This project only took 3 weeks, but was still as big and important as a project I could spend 2 months on. I learned a lot, and got to practice skills in more focused, clear ways.
I hope you enjoyed my blog, and had a RIEL good time!
I am proud to say I survived my second winter exhibition!
If your new to my blog, I do exhibitions twice a year for school, to present a really big project I worked on. This year, the grade 9’s got to do a massive project about revolutions… and Rube Goldberg machines! I thought this was a pretty interesting combination, but it led to a very fun project!
The very beginning of the project started with understanding what a revolution is, and what it consists of. I got a really good understanding of this by learning about the 4 stages; incubation, moderate, crisis, and recovery. The stages showed me how a revolution starts, builds, changes, and ends(sometimes). It took me a little but to understand, but once I did I felt very confident.
The next step I had to take in this unit was creating an infographic about the revolution I would be studying for the rest of the unit. I got… the American Revolution!
I couldn’t just make the revolution straight out of thin air, first I needed to get a really confident understanding of the event. Lots of reading, lots of videos, and a very talented history major helped me get to that confident understanding. I had a very mixed time learning about it. At the start I was very comfused and found out my note taking skills were not as good as I thought they were. I had to practice taking notes a lot until I could easily collect the important, key information I need. Once I had a basic understanding the detail came a lot easier. I’m actually happy it took me a while to figure out, because it helped me see the value of useful notes, and about more successful learning methods for me. I am so extremely proud of my infographic, and I believe I show my skills through it.
Then we got to the really fun part, put final product! Now that we understand our revolution, we got to build a Rube Goldberg machine that was a metaphor for the revolution. Each component in the machine was a metaphor for an event, time, or change. This was probably one of the most challenging projects I have done. We had 3 weeks to build a massive machine, and because we were American, of course we needed the biggest machine.
I think my group had a hard time starting the actual build. It seemed like no one was super sure of our idea, so no one really wanted to make the first move. Once we got moving, some things came easier. We all had very complex but strong ideas for the “connections” in the machine, which lead to a hard time actually building the machine. I know for me personally, it was also hard to see other groups make significantly more progress. It took us so much time to build every little part, we started running into check up dates for parts of the machine we hadn’t built yet. We hadn’t tested many of the components.
When we did, they normally didn’t work, and we had to revise. While people were working on the machine, others had to create separate parts. We needed a video that showed the process of us building, aswell as a good design for the area of presentation. Everything that we needed to do seemed like a lot, and some days we seemed to be going backwards in progress.
I can’t say when, but at one point in the chaos, I feel my group started to work much better together. We started to make connections faster, and fix the old ones. We still were running out of time, as we came to exhibition day with a still incomplete machine. We did get to finish it, but because we finished it so late we didn’t have time to perfect it.
During the actual exhibition itself, our machine worked fully about 5 times! This was such a success, because right before the exhibition started, I wasn’t sure if it would work at all. So I can say I am happy with the outcome, but the progress and build up was not successful. If I were to do this project again, I would want to have better communication and teamwork with my group. This is something that I really try to work on, because I think it has a huge effect on the project. I am sure my group could have completed our machine much sooner, and been more prepared if our communication skills improved.
Overall, I really enjoyed this project. I feel like I demonstrated a strong learner throughout the unit, but still saw my weaknesses and areas for improvement.
I became an actor, a producer, and an editor, through one project!
Me and my three friends were assigned the very fun project of making a 2 minute thriller. It wasn’t just as simple as making a quick little vidoe, we had to come up with an original idea, then make a story board, full written plot, characters, costumes, locations, etc. This might sound easy to you, but for me it was quite a challenge. My group ran into many challenges along the way, but ended with an excellent product.
To start us of, we had to actually come up with an idea. For our vision, our story was: four girls go swimming one night in the ocean. They are all by themselves, but having a good time and nothing seems to be going wrong. Then, one girl swims a bit further away from the group, looks back, and someone is missing. She starts going towards the group, but another one goes missing. Then the third girl goes missing, and the last girl is all alone. The movie ends on a cliffhanger, with the last girl floating in the water, all by herself, as two hands reach over her shoulders. I think this is a pretty bomb idea.
We discovered the first problem really quick; filming in the ocean would be so bad and cold, at night, in November. It would be impossible, and honestly pretty unsafe. We quickly fixed this problem by changing locations, instead of the ocean we would film in a pool. So with this pivot we only had to change the location, all the characters and the main idea stayed the same.
Now that we had everything, we got to filming. Problem #2 came up, when we were 4 days away from the deadline and hadn’t started yet. We also only had one night that we were all available, so we had one chance to get this right. We should have made more time to film, or changed the idea right there and then because only having one night to film is very unrealistic. But sadly, we were to confident and went to the filming site. Then comes problem #3. The pool we wanted to use is outdoor, and unheated. We were so cold that it took us almost three painful hours of going from pool to hot tub before we got all the shots. Now, because of the coldness, lots of our shots were done poorly. No one wanted to be in the water, so filming became hard, and acting became even harder. We had shots that we wanted peopel to be in the background of, but because everyone was cold, we thought it would be fine to leave out those (important) details.
This is when problem #4 came. The next day at school we started editing, and realized very fast that more then half of our shots were not good enough. And remember how I said we only hand one day to film? That meant our one chance was lost and we had 2 or 3 days left before the deadline.
Our next action would be huge, and have lots of things attached to it. We wanted to get an extension to the project, and change our idea, so we could hand in an actual video that met requirements. Our new and improved idea was still in the same realm as our first ones, but instead of being in cold water, we would film in a forest! I think this pivot was actually so successful, because it lead to a product that I am so proud of. We didn’t have to change our plot to much, because we kept the idea of people going missing, but we just had to tweak our transitions from in-water moments, to ones that would work in a forest.
We also got help from our friend Zach, who filmed many scenes for us. We also learned from the “only one day to film” incident and made sure everyone was available at least three times before our new due date. Our filming went smoothly, especially since we weren’t in freezing cold water. I feel like everyone could also “act” better, just because of the more time we gave ourselves, and the more comfortable environment.
This project was pretty rocky, we faced a lot of challenges and for a bit I thought we wouldn’t have any final project, but with problem solving, teamwork, and help from others, I am proud to hand in my video.
How do the choices we make set our future path? -driving Q
In what felt like the middle of no where, my class grew from a bunch of kids in an iPad program, to a team.
For 1 week, my whole PLP grade went to loon lake for a Team-Building and Leadership retreat. During this retreat we learned a lot about ourselves, but also about eachother and community. I think that everyone that was on this trip took at least one thing away from it, but I know that I personally took away a lot.
Throughout the week we worked on a booklet, which was filled with activities that helped us understand many things, like what a successful leader, what type of leader I am, my strengths, etc. Before we went through this book, I thought I already had a really good understanding of this, but I actually learned so much more.
One of these things that I learned that really stuck with me was identifying my leadership style/styles. My leadership style is encourager. This style is pretty self explanatory; I am very encouraging, I celebrate achievements, I give lots of support, and lots of appreciation. I feel like this fits me perfectly. Now I know my leadership strengths, and where/how I can support my team the best.
Another thing that really stuck with me are my emotional intelligence traits. I am emotionally self aware, I have group awareness, and I am empathic. Knowing these continues to help me use my strengths when working in a group, but also helps me understand what I need to work on. I know I need to work on optimism, adaptability, and emotional self control (a trait I think might be the most important to have!).
The book wasn’t all we did while on our trip, we also got lots of hands-on actives. Some of these were like high-ropes courses, rock climbing, and archery. Through these activities I found the groups we were placed in started to grow, and created a sense of trust within everyone. More trust was built as we grew into more intense activities, like the trust fall. For this trust fall, one person stood on a chair which was on a table, and fell backwards into the arms of classmates. This activity was really big for me, because it was one of the first times I have trusted my peers so much. Falling from so high is really scary, but having a team there for you makes it so much easier.
This was such an amazing week, I learned so much but still had so much fun. I got to think about so many different things, and do so many things. But before I leave, I need to answer the driving question! “How do the choices we make set our future path?” Everything I ever do will effect me and my future, even if it’s in the smallest way. But these small effects can lead to much bigger ones. Going to a small retreat for one week in 9th grade might not seem very impactful, but that one week taught me skills in need for my future, and taught me how to get there successfully. Being a good leader is one thing, but understanding why you are a good leader and how you can be an even better one is so much more.
For one whole day, I got to follow my mom around to understand what she does for work!
She is an organizational psychologist, who does leadership development. She works with people help them become better leaders. She does this in lots of ways; through assessments, workshops, and coaching sessions.
When she does assessments for individuals, she is using tools to discover their greatest strengths and weaknesses relative to leadership skills. For workshops, she works with groups or teams, and teaches them new leadership skills. This could be about how to communicate effectively, or how to give feedback (kind of like PLP!). In her coaching sessions, she discuses what her client is struggling with by asking lots of questions, helping them understand their problem better, and helping them find a solution for that issue by themselves. This makes sure they know what their problem is, and they have a solution that works best for them.
Because I am a super cool PLP student, I got the opportunity to turn this day into a film! I had the task of creating a short video that showed what I did on take-your-kid-to-work-day, and what my mom does everyday! To create this video, I needed to have a rough idea of the shots I needed (lots of b-roll). Luckily, because my mom works from home, if I needed more videos of her office I just had to walk down stoke stairs. So the day before, I made sure I had an idea of the clips I needed, as well as my interview questions.
On the actual day, I filmed as much as I possibly could! I also took some notes on what she was talking about so I could have a really good understanding of what she does every day. She showed me her client work, and her “behind the scenes” work. That would be things like invoicing and scheduling.
Now that I had all the information I needed, the interview, and some b-roll, I started putting the clips together and creating a script. I editing my scenes lengths and removed the sound. I tried to get a variety of angles when filming, and pieced them together in ways I thought they would work well. I recorded my script and boom video was done!
This project helped me get more comfortable making short movies, enthuse on short! Normally I am not good at making short videos when I have to include narration, but I think I did much better on this video!
I had a really good time with this project, and had lots of fun learning about her work!
I don’t know if I could see myself being a leadership developer, but could you?
How has the geography of the west shaped who we are?
This is a pretty tricky question, but I was able to answer it through what I learned on my Alberta trip.
This was a very big trip, for one week I drove around in a bus with my class, stopping at historical sights and beautiful national parks. At every place we went, I learned something new. It didn’t even have to be some fact, it could be as random as something about a classmate of mine. But all of it still somehow connected to the driving question.
I documented lots of my learning through a Digital Touch book.
For every place we went, I added photos, videos, and information I gathered from there. My main focus was about the five themes of geography; Location, Place, Human-environment interaction, Movement, and Regions. I would select one main photo that I thought really showed where we went, and then talked about which of the fives themes of geography I could see. What I found was, in every image I could see all 5. Sometimes some were much more clear then others, but as I went along in this project I found them easier to see. In my book, I do only talk about the ones that are easiest to spot.
This part of the project really got me thinking about geography everywhere we went. I got to see these beautiful places in a new way, and I could finally look at them for more then just the beauty. I would actually be learning something.
Another thing we focused on in the book was a more historical aspect. As well as talking about geography, I included why each place was historically significant. In some places like Cave and Basin, this was very easy. Everything there taught me something, whether it was about the three boys that “founded” it, or the endangered species of snails. In other places, it was a little harder, like golden Skybridge. For the Skybridge, I had to find out more about the geography to really understand its historical significance.
So with everything I learned, how do I answer the driving question? I like to look at it from a more personal perspective. I know how the geography of the west has shaped who I am. The mountains I am surrounded by and the ocean I live near make me who I am. It is a way for me to connect with people, find passions, and calm myself. Being surrounded by diverse terrain gives me opportunities to explore and learn everyday, because this is what I am interested in.
From a broader standpoint, the geography of the west effected the history of BC, which of course effects me. The building of the CPR, the joining of BC to the Canadian Confederation, and even the fur trade. All of this was effected by the geography of western Canada, and all of that has effected me in one way or another.
So I think this is a question that is hard to answer for everyone, because “how has the geography of the west shaped who we are” includes lots of people. If you yourself look at it in a personal way, I think the question becomes much easier. Think about what you love to do, and could you do it without the area we are surrounded by? How is your job, your family, your home effected by the environment we are in? All these questions lead to the answer of the driving question.
I think I have successfully answered the driving question, but I wanna know, what do you think?
On my trip to Alberta I learned about the power of the moving image. The big idea for this project was questioning, specifically to the driving question “how might I use the moving image to tell a story?”. I showed this through 4 videos I made over the course of this project.
My 4 videos were different in terms of their length, angles, and the specific elements I chose to showcase. Despite these differences, what tied them all together was their ability to tell a story. Each video was unique, and even though they differed greatly in content and perspective, they all ultimately served the purpose of storytelling.
To enhance these stories, I used visual effects, sound effects, and other techniques to make the videos more appealing. The importance of the editing was shown in how it added depth, emotion, and intrigue to each video.
What Inspires Me Video
My “What Inspires Me” video was the first video I made for this project. The point of this video was to tell MY story. I talked about what interests me, what I do for fun, and what I care about most. I showed questioning in this video, because I had to question myself, and find the true answers. I also shared my ideas publicly, by posting them on YouTube. In this project I think I did a really good job of incorporating stand-up clips of me, as well as old clips of me. Next time I would want to add more effects, to really amp up the video.
Investigative Video
My Investigative video was the biggest video I made this project. The goal of it was to support my thesis by questioning. So many questions. In this video I talk about my thesis, and use interviews as well as other resources to support it. I had to question people beliefs, as well as my own. I shared my thesis and my opinions on the matter with everyone I interviewed. I did lots of my own research too, to see how Western Canada is presented online. In the end, I put everything I learned together into a video. I think I did a really good job with my video, I think it shows what I learned well, and proves my thesis really well. If I were to do this video again, I would have interviewed more people, and made sure my videos were filmed well. This could mean a better angle, or better sound quality.
Silent Video
My Silent video was a collaboration video with Neko and Syd. This video was really cool because the whole point was to tell a story, but without any words. It was silent, with the exception of some sound effects and some music. To make this video I had to brainstorm with my group, and share my ideas with them. We watched other videos as inspiration, videos from groups that had been to our filming location before. Together, we came up with a very funny plan, and executed it very well at Three Valley Gap. I think my group did a really good job with this project, but I personally think I did a great job coming up with some of the ideas for it. Next time, I would want to me more helpful for the editing portion, which I recognize Syd did a lot of.
TikTok Video
My TikTok was my shortest and probably easiest video I made throughout this project. I had lots of fun with it, and felt I had lots of freedom around it. The point of this video was to make a TikTok trend, while still telling some story of the west. Me and Lila did this by telling our story of the trip through lots of little clips of us in different locations. We share everyplace we went. Once we filmed all the clips, I put them together and added music over. The music and what me and Lila are doing in the TikTok is what makes it trendy. In this project it I think we did a good job picking a trendy video that actually has to do with travelling. If I were to do this project again, I would want to film in more locations so I could show more of the trip (tell the story a bit better).
So, what do these 4 videos all do? They help me answer the driving question! “How might I use the moving image to tell a story?”.
I can use the moving image to tell a story in lots of different ways. I have shown this through my videos, because you can see that each one tells a story, but is so different from one another. My TikTok verses my investigation video as an example: both are different lengths, angles, and have different editing. Both these videos are showing their story in a different way, because the story is not the same. Everything seems different about these two videos, except for it’s core purpose; a story. The story can be enhanced by editing, such as visual and sound effects. The story should also have a beginning, middle, and end.
All this leads me to believe I answered the driving question, but I wanna know, what do you think?
Hey blog! I lied, if you have read my most recent post. I said I would be blogging for a while, and you would probably see my in September, but here I am, blogging AGAIN, the day after I said that.
I do get to talk about something a little more fun (in my opinion), which is my spring exhibition! This was my first Spring Exhibition, and I loved it!
For this exhibition my grade did a project on advertising and making advertisements (Medium is the Message), and our final product was showcased during it. This was the last project we did in humanities this year, SO LETS TALK ABOUT IT.
My driving question for this project was: “How does advertising persuade, sell, and influence society?”
Like I said, this project was all about advertising. We started by learning about the basics; what a target audience is, advertising techniques, advertising appeals, and looking at professional advertisements. This was really interesting, and really fun. I think this was my favourite pert of the project. Then we started taking what we learned and putting into a “persuasive chart”. That’s just a funny name for it, what it really was was a chart with ads we got to pick, then learn about. We had to wright what types of techniques and appeals they used, and what we thought the message of the ad was. I liked this project, but I really struggled with it. My teacher, Ms. Willemse, was gone for this project, so we had a substitute teacher. I know it is very hard for substitutes, so I’m not blaming him, but sadly he couldn’t answer some of the questions I had. I struggled a with the criteria, and understanding the expectations Ms. Willemse.
After the persuasive chart, we started making our REAL ads! What I forgot to mention earlier was that some of the project was done while we were on our Oregon trip! And during our Oregon trip we stopped at lots of different companies, companies we would advertise for! My company was Marine Discovery Tours. I got to interview the owner Fran, and ask her questions about her business, her advertising, and her life story! I recorded our conversation, so once we got back to school, everyone advertising for the company could write down notes. This part was pretty cool because I got to know my group a lot better just by sharing this information. I had to go ask them questions, and answer questions they had for me.
Then came the exciting and very important part! Making the ads. After learning about advertising and learning about my company, I got to make a print ad for them. I found this very hard at first, but slowly it came to me. My problem was I had no idea where to even start. I had an idea of what I wanted, but making the first draft was really difficult. I think I made it so hard for myself because I am scared of failure, and I didn’t want my first draft to be a fail. LOL. It was. And I am ok with that. I wasn’t ok with it being a failure as I was making it though. And right after handing it in I wanted to make a new BETTER one, so failing worked out good for me! After lots and lots of drafts I finally created an ad I was happy with.
Now that I made the ad, I was ready for the exhibition! Because my grades “theme” was advertising, each group had 1 booth that they all shared and decorated to match the theme of their company! I loveddddd decorating so much! I think my group did AMAZING and I think our booth looked great! Presenting was also pretty cool. Having so many people come up and talk to me about my work always makes me feel good, because it makes me think my work is good enough for them to have to ask/talk to me about it. I also really enjoyed the exhibition because all my team came! My coach, and all my friends!! It was super nice of them because none of my family could make it, so seeing them made my day. It was also a surprise, and I love a good surprise.
Overall this project was really fun, same with the exhibition. I feel like I have answered the driving question with this reflection, the keystone I have done, and my final product. What do you think?
